Whittington Health NHS Trust has been running electric vehicles longer than most organisations would care to remember. Their community nursing teams were early adopters of the Reva G-Wiz — those distinctive little bubble cars that became a familiar sight on North London streets in the mid-2000s. Quirky, compact, and genuinely ahead of their time, the G-Wiz was one of the first practical electric vehicles available in the UK and the NHS were among the first to put them to work for real-world community care.
Fast forward to today and the fleet has grown up considerably — the G-Wiz has long given way to modern EVs — but the commitment to electric transport remains. And with a bigger fleet comes bigger infrastructure. When two of their charge points went down across different Whittington Health sites on the same day, they needed them back up quickly.
Here's what we found.
The first charge point was a Rolec WallPod unit — one of the most commonly installed EV chargers in the UK. The fault? A failed RCBO. Again.
If you work with Rolec units regularly, you'll know this is a recurring theme. The RCBO (Residual Current Breaker with Overcurrent protection) is a known weak point on these chargers, particularly on older or heavily used installations. We'd half-joke that Rolec should sell replacement RCBOs in blister packs at the checkout — they go that often.
The old unit was a Rolec ACEQ0135 C20 30mA. We replaced it with the updated Rolec ACEQ0110 — a C16A 30mA 1P+N Type A RCBO — tested the circuit, and had it back in service.
While we were there it's worth flagging: many older Rolec commando-style units like these don't include an interlock — a feature that's now a requirement under current regulations. An interlock prevents the connector being removed while the circuit is live, reducing the risk of electric shock. If your site is running older Rolec units without this feature, they would not be compliant with today's standards. Worth getting them reviewed.
The second site had an Elektrobay pedestal charger — completely dead, no power at all. These things are built to last, so when one goes completely offline the culprit is usually external rather than the unit itself.
Sure enough: the 13A to commando charging lead had been badly damaged — burnt through. It's an easy thing to overlook, but charging leads take constant abuse in a busy car park environment. They get driven over, trapped in doors, left coiled in the rain, and generally treated as an afterthought. A damaged lead will kill the circuit and take the charger offline entirely.
The fix was simple: remake the lead, reset the RCBO on the consumer unit (a Newlec board, B16 RCBO, labelled DB5 Electric Car Charger), and the Elektrobay came straight back online.
The lesson: look after your cables. A replacement 13A to commando lead is a fraction of the cost of a call-out, and keeping spares on site at any EV charging facility is just good practice. If a charger goes dead, check the lead before assuming the worst.
We work with commercial clients, facilities managers, and contractors across North and Central London to keep EV charging infrastructure running. Whether it's a Rolec, Elektrobay, Pod Point, or any other brand — if it's not working, we'll find the fault and fix it.
Common faults we see:
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